Trance,' and allowing your head to be messed with

You know the moment near the end of a twisty movie when something happens that puts everything else you’ve seen in a new light? In supertwisty “Trance,” that moment happens during the opening credits.

Danny Boyle’s movie is a little too tricky and too obsessed with keeping us guessing, but it’s also dazzling, clever fun that should please fans who’ve been wishing he would make another movie along the same lines as his entertaining debut, “Shallow Grave.”

Like “Shallow Grave,” “Trance” is a crime caper that focuses on a group of people who commit a crime together but realize they can’t trust each other, even before they’ve had time to divvy up the loot.

In “Trance,” the loot is a Goya painting swiped in the middle of an art auction. James McAvoy plays an auction employee who was in on the crime but who got conked on the head and has forgotten where he stashed the Goya. His partner, volatile Vincent Cassel, isn’t convinced the amnesia is legit, but he hires a hypnotist to see if she can unlock the mystery of the missing masterpiece. Since she’s played by gorgeous Rosario Dawson, she also may hold the key to either or both men’s hearts.

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The fun in “Trance” is how it uses vivid colors, muscular editing and snappy cinematography to mess with our heads. Big chunks of the movie are set in McAvoy’s sessions with Dawson, and it’s often not clear if what we’re seeing is in his head or if it’s in the “real world” of the film.

As a result, watching the movie feels almost like we’re being hypnotized, like we’re powerless to resist its allure. And in a way, isn’t that true of all good movies?

Afterward, you’ll be able to find plot holes in “Trance.” For instance, there’s one key image it doesn’t plant in our minds well enough. But even that feels like part of the fun: While you’re watching “Trance,” it’s so deft at pulling the wool over your eyes, so it’s only later that you think, “I can’t believe it got me.”

Movie critic Chris Hewitt can be reached at 651-228-5552. Follow him on twitter.com/ChrisHMovie.